


lay out a tidal wave

by amberwing, Saturdaynightspecial



Series: and they were pirates [1]
Category: Kingdom Hearts
Genre: Aged-Up Character(s), Alternate Universe - Magic, Alternate Universe - Pirate, Body Horror, Eldritch, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, Eyes, M/M, rowdy dirty boys
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-12-22
Updated: 2019-12-22
Packaged: 2021-02-26 01:01:19
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,880
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21904879
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/amberwing/pseuds/amberwing, https://archiveofourown.org/users/Saturdaynightspecial/pseuds/Saturdaynightspecial
Summary: It was a cold, moonless night; they were so far out that the horizon was curved, gently, and Sora let his hand follow the convex line of it before he turned on his heels. With a flourish, he twisted his hand upside-down to follow the mountainous swell of a sleeping god. One pinkie streeeetched to tap the far-away spire of a hunting ship’s mainsail before he curled his fingers back in, a fist with the prize at its center.Gotcha.The air was chilly enough that his teeth ached when he bared them in a lopsided grin. It was a good night to be a pirate.
Relationships: Riku/Sora (Kingdom Hearts)
Series: and they were pirates [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1577857
Comments: 7
Kudos: 51





	lay out a tidal wave

**Author's Note:**

> This is a wild and incredibly AU ride from start to finish, and will undoubtedly get even more AU as the rest is written. This is dedicated to Saturdaynightspecial, who as well as brainstorming this entire story with me, has been a wonderful cheerleader and priceless friend.

It was a cold, moonless night; they were so far out that the horizon was curved, gently, and Sora let his hand follow the convex line of it before he turned on his heels. With a flourish, he twisted his hand upside-down to follow the mountainous swell of a sleeping god. One pinkie streeeetched to tap the far-away spire of a hunting ship’s mainsail before he curled his fingers back in, a fist with the prize at its center.

_ Gotcha _ . 

The air was chilly enough that his teeth ached when he bared them in a lopsided grin. It was a good night to be a pirate.

The crew of the  _ Excalibur _ didn’t need to be told what to do; they’d been chasing this one—the restored  _ Thunderlord _ , finally fit to hunt again—for a good fortnight now. It wasn’t easy being this good, but Sora was born in the hold of a raiding galley, and he’d spent more time on water than land. The eastern seas back home were wilder than these doldrums; his crew might as well’ve been foxes in the chicken coop. 

Except they were so much meaner than foxes. 

They were coming in fast,  _ Excalibur  _ gliding near-silent across the black mirror of the ocean; soon, he could hear the  _ Thunderlord _ ’s crew at work: low voices and the wet thunk of machinery drilling into the leviathan’s hide. Sora felt his boarding party come up alongside him, warm fellow shadows readying billy clubs and grappling hooks. His blood fizzed with anticipation, bubblier than ill-gotten champagne. He tossed a grin to Ven—on his right, as always—before pulling his bandana up over his nose.

And with a breathtakingly sharp tack that’d capsize a lesser ship, they were upon them.  _ Thunderlord  _ was bulky as leviathan hunters went; a bit more of a climb up the armored sides, sure, but with plenty of handholds and less chance of missing the jump. Breathe in. Don’t do something stupid, like fumble the rope and plunge into the too-still, too-black water below. 

Breathe out. Sora uncoiled fast, sunk his hook into the crevices of tarred planks and armored plating, and flung himself across the divide.

Empty air rushed below him, and  _ Excalibur  _ was pulling away even as his boots thudded reassuringly against the side of the hunter-ship. His crew thumped in alongside him, but he was already scrambling upwards and flipping himself over the rail onto the deck.

It was a mess of production: blood and oil and chunks of flesh slicked the decking while _Thunderlord_ crew shoveled and poured it all into barrels. The smell was awful even through his bandana—tar and metal, brine and rot—but Sora was long used to it, and he was too busy to care; there was a whole hunter-ship’s crew to subdue and not much time to do it. If the beast decided to wake up while _Thunderlord_ was still hooked to it, they were _all_ dead.

It wasn’t likely to happen, but every sailor knew someone who’d seen it, had watched in horror as the maelstrom of a leviathan’s dive swallowed ships whole.

This was crazy and incredibly dangerous, and Sora had yet to find anything else that matched the thrill of it, the sheer  _ joy _ of the chase and the catch, the battle and its victory. And they  _ were _ going to win; they’d never lost. They never would. 

He didn’t handpick his crew for nothing. There was no need to babysit them through this; they were a seamless engine of destruction. Sora slammed his club into the back of the closest  _ Thunderlord _ crewman’s head and they crumpled forwards into their workmate, spilling them both to the deck in a tangle. Ahead of him, Leon pulled up the gangplank that bridged the  _ Thunderlord _ and the leviathan, stranding a good half of the crew atop the beast—a very perilous place to be. Leon paused in tying it off to kick an approaching sailor in the kneecap, sending him screaming into the deck’s slop.

“Captain!” 

Sora swerved and ducked; Ven’s club whistled over his head, and he heard an awful  _ crack! _ , followed by a scream and thud. He whirled and kicked the body of the attacker away, then grabbed Ven’s extended hand and hefted him upwards with the momentum of it, whooping, “Get the lookout!” 

Ven grabbed hold of the shrouds with ease, and he was clambering up the mainmast like a ferret into a warren before Sora even finished speaking. His face hurt from grinning, and he was already breathing hard into his bandana—but this! This was everything! He ducked and leapt, somersaulted and twirled around the mainmast to slam his boot into the stomach of what was probably the first mate, landed atop her with his club pressed hard against the bob of her throat.

Behind him, Ven dropped the lookout the last five feet and hopped down after him, sinuous and pleased with himself. Leon dragged the  _ Thunderlord _ ’s captain over, already hogtied, and dropped her beside the first mate. She was covered in thick, sticky blue-black blood that made her eyes seem bright enough to spark.

“Captain Elrena,” Sora said with a bow, stepping off the first mate to let Ven tie her up. In his peripheral vision, his crew was already on cleanup;  _ Thunderlord _ ’s people weren’t stupid or loyal enough to put up more than the most paltry of resistance, and they let themselves be coralled against the rail. “Didn’t think we’d see each other so soon! Weren’t you halfway down a sea-wight’s gullet last time?”

Elrena’s mouth twitched violently before settling into a sharp, jagged frown. “I almost wish I’d died, if it meant I’d never have to hear your stupid voice again.”

“Aw, c’mon,” Sora teased. “Is that how you greet an old friend?” 

“Oh fuck  _ off _ .”

He laughed before turning away from her, hands on his hips as he surveyed their prize. The mess was horrific, but they were old hands at this; he could pick out the most valuable cargo in an instant, and gestured for them to be pulled to the starboard side for pickup.  _ Excalibur _ would rendezvous as soon as they’d run up the white flag.

Ven tied the last knot on the first mate’s wrists before bouncing back to his feet. “Gonna hoist the flag.” 

He nodded to him, and even as Sora turned to Leon he was already striding away towards the subdued crew. “Don’t forget to let the stranded ones back over, will you?” Sora called after him, to which Leon simply waved a hand over his shoulder, dismissive, a silent “yeah, yeah”. 

“So, thanks again.” He twirled on his heels to face Elrena and her first mate, the both of them now glaring hot murder at him. He couldn’t help but grin. “You put up a good chase! And that’s a really chunky fiend you found—didja get its name?”

Elrena’s lips pursed into a pout that would’ve been cute on anyone else; on her, it was a lot like staring down an angry weasel. “Don’t patronize me,” she snapped. “Just take your prizes and get off my ship.”

The first mate’s eyes darted to her briefly before settling on Sora’s face. He beamed. “We don’t know its full name yet. It’s old.”

_ That  _ was interesting. Sora’s eyebrows rose before he could stop them, and he drummed his fingers on the hilt of his club, considering. “How old?” 

“No idea. But the scribe’s been busy writing since we got here, so…  _ old _ old. He’s probably still going.” 

Elrena rolled her eyes, but she sounded less angry than tired now. “Make it easy for him, why don’t you?” 

First mate shrugged her shoulders as best she could. “What’s the point now? He’d figure it out himself in a minute.” Elrena’s gusty sigh ruffled the edges of Sora’s bandana. 

He squatted beside them, elbow braced on a knee, chin braced in a hand. “Still good old Ienzo downstairs? Or did the wight get him?”

“Go see for yourself,” Elrena told him sourly. First mate didn’t seem inclined to tempt her captain’s goodwill any further, and clamped her mouth shut when Sora glanced at her pleadingly. Now it was his turn to pout, but she didn’t budge—just shook her head a bit, smearing more blood and gunk into her strawberry blonde hair. 

“Guess I will,” he sighed and bounced back to his feet. Tidus was passing by, rolling a barrel of something precious, and Sora tapped his shoulder. “Scribe’s in the hold, I’m gonna go get him. Tell Ven when you see him.” 

“Yessir!” Tidus managed a shaky salute and nearly lost control of the barrel, but by some miracle caught it before Elrena was unceremoniously crushed. The glare she shot at him could’ve killed lesser men, but Tidus just grinned at her, wiggling his eyebrows, before continuing on his way. 

Picking his way through the controlled chaos was a fun little dance; Sora took his time patting shoulders and congratulating his crew on a job well done as he dodged barrels, crates, and hunks of leviathan flesh. Xion staggered past with a promisingly jingly trunk the size of her whole torso, and he paused to help steady her over a particularly slimy bit. 

Her smile was small and hesitant, followed by a slight head-bob of thanks—at least, that’s what he  _ thought _ that gesture was, but it could well have been her trying to keep the chest steady with her chin. “Great job with that helmsman earlier, by the way!” 

Her smile slowly grew into a grin, and Sora grinned back. That was better. “Did you see me throw him, Captain?”

“Off the gundeck and right into a pair of riggers!” He mimed the action, one hand flopping wildly in the air until he slapped his other palm with a squeaky ‘aaaaa noooo!’.

That even got a snort of laughter out of her. “Thanks, sir.”

“Keep it up!” 

Sora was whistling by the time he’d started his descent into the quarterdeck, swinging his club in time to a half-remembered beat. Scribes were usually kept in their own cubby in the officers’ quarters—something the officers always seemed to have mixed feelings about, which Sora didn’t quite  _ get _ , given scribes were, well.  _ Necessary _ . And every single one he’d ever met was a fucking riot. Admittedly creepy, but what wasn’t in this line of work? You got used to it. 

The officers’ quarters were surprisingly neat: cots’ covers tucked in carefully, no sign of dirty laundry or forgotten food left to rot like he’d found in other hunter-ships. He had to give Elrena that, at least; she ran a tight operation. It only smelled a little musty rather than rancid. He prodded a sea-chest open with his club as he meandered past, peering in at bundles of clothes and letters before he moved on. Sure enough, an alcove had been built into the very back of the already-claustrophobic (not that it bothered Sora anymore—much) space. 

Pale light coiled past the flimsy half-bulkhead that separated the scribe from his fellows. Sora paused and tapped a knuckle against the wood in warning. The light flickered, a startled cat arching and then settling again. 

“Your timing is, as always, impeccable. I’ve just finished.”

Sora took that as welcome, and swung around the divider. A tiny desk was crammed into the corner, facing the mirror, and a small man was hunched at it, his spine jutting harsh rungs through his shirt. The light was sourceless. A draft of strangely cold air tugged at Sora’s hair, tickling the back of his neck. He let himself have one full-body shudder to shake off the creeping sensation of fingers, tendrils, kelp threading around his throat and ribs. Threatening. But that was just how it went.

Sora forced himself to look at Ienzo’s back, and  _ only  _ his back. “Long time no see!”

“How long  _ has _ it been?” Ienzo asked, and shifted to sit fully upright again. He did not turn to look at Sora. The muscle beneath his shirt continued to squirm after his body had stilled. Sora picked another spot to stare at: the nape of Ienzo’s neck, where pewter hair was slicked to his skin with sweat.

“Mmmm, about 6 months, give or take? I thought you were eaten for sure.”

Ienzo chuckled, indulgently. The movement of his arms stretching out in front of him, bones and joints clicking, cracking, nearly caught Sora’s eye. He closed them. “As did I, frankly. But Elrena is quite stubborn—and resourceful.” Ienzo sighed, long and rattling. “I take it we’re being robbed?”

Sora dared to squint an eye open again. Everything seemed… normal. Ish. “Yup,” he replied. “You got its name?” 

“Of course. I warn you, though—it’s…” Sora waited for him to continue, but the silence stretched. He knew better than to interrupt, but  _ man _ , this was his least favourite thing about this business: waiting for people to get on with it.  _ Especially _ when he could feel the mirror’s weight like a living thing, a predator ready for acknowledgement. 

He wouldn’t give it that. Foxes outsmarted hounds.

Ienzo didn’t say more, simply rustled some papers, gathering them up in his arms and pushing his chair the inch or so aside he could in the alcove. His face was sallow with exhaustion as he turned to face Sora, his hair lank, and eyeshine gleamed where no eyes were meant to be. “Here,” he said, and held out a folio. The paper was damp against Sora’s fingers, catching at his callouses as he took it. “I’ve several copies already made—but you knew that.”

“I did.” He folded the pages up neatly before shoving them into a pocket. “You look rough.”

“I am,” Ienzo agreed, his eyes (not the  _ other  _ eyes; Sora was pretty sure those didn’t have lids) fluttering shut for a too-long beat. “I wasn’t… entirely prepared for this.”

Sora knew better than to ask what “this” was—the journey, the scribing, the leviathan—and just stepped out of the mouth of the alcove to let Ienzo join him, slope-shouldered and thin with tiredness amidst the officers’ cots. The ghostly glow winked out as soon as Ienzo was out of line of sight of the mirror.

And good riddance to  _ that _ . He’d rather stumble through a shadowy, unfamiliar hold than have that thing lighting his way. Scribes he liked—the mirrors and what lurked within them? Noooo thank you. “D’you need a hand?” Sora offered, and the silhouette of Ienzo’s head shook in refusal. 

“Better not,” he muttered, crossing his arms over his chest as though he were cold. His body shook with a sudden shiver. He didn’t elaborate, and Sora didn’t really want him to, given it was probably something to do with the curiously wet sheen of his skin, and, of course, the glitter of  _ so fucking many  _ eyes, too much like gleam of beetle shells scattered beneath a shrike’s favourite perch. 

So he let Ienzo lead in his staggering, weaving way like he’d been sneaking sips from the rum casks, except Sora was pretty certain it hadn’t been anything close to that fun. He kept a good five feet between them until Ienzo stumbled and crashed to the floor, catching himself on palms and knees with an awful crack. Sora crouched beside him immediately, and placed a hand on his shoulder before he thought about it—only to recoil in reflex at the sensation of  _ wet _ and  _ cold _ , the fabric of Ienzo’s shirt soaked through and barely covering an incredibly disquieting undulation. 

He clenched his hand at his side before rubbing it on his trousers, but the slimy sensation remained. “I can carry you—”

“It will pass,” Ienzo gasped, leaning away from Sora as he reached out to him. “Trust that I won’t be moving from this spot for—a bit, if you have other matters to attend to.”

Sora’s mouth twisted unhappily. “Can I do anything to help? Blankets?” Ienzo shook his head again. “Tea? Some scrumptious hardtack?” 

A watery laugh. “ _ No _ .”

“Better not move,” Sora told him, and rose from his squat with a grunt. “I’ll know.” Without waiting for Ienzo to reply, Sora tugged a blanket off the nearest cot and placed it gently beside him. Just in case. “Be back in a jiff.” 

He took two steps at a time back up to the quarterdeck, and the first breath of cool night air was a relief. Even the stink of leviathan flesh was preferable to the way Ienzo’s shoulder had  _ given _ under his fingers, like slowly jellying salt beef. 

He was thinking about that, very hard, as he slid down the ladder back to the main deck, and nearly ran into Ven—who was standing, stock still, like he’d been shot. Sora jerked backwards, fumbling his club. “What—”

Ven’s eyes darted to him, then back out starboard. “Something’s wrong,” he whispered, and jerked his head a little in the same direction.

Sora squinted at him. “What?”

“ _ Look _ ,” Ven hissed, and turned Sora’s head with his hand atop it. Sora allowed this only because Ven may as well have been his brother and he loved him—but he would remember it for later. Scowling, he looked. 

Black ocean. The occasional scudding cloud pale against the night sky. The distant silhouette of  _ Excalibur _ , who should have been coming up beside  _ Thunderlord _ by now, except—

“ _ Who is that _ ?” Sora demanded, and Ven quickly removed his hand from Sora’s head. 

“I don’t know,” Ven snapped back, keeping his voice low. Sora shot a hand out, palm up, and wriggled his fingers forcefully until Ven slapped his spyglass into it. The metal was icy cold against his skin as he pressed it over his eye and adjusted the magnification until the blurry black dot of  _ Excalibur _ and  _ another ship _ came into focus: a cutter of some sort, bigger than  _ Excalibur _ but still riding low enough in the water to hint at speed. 

And, he realized, nose wrinkling with an emotion he couldn’t quite put a name to—something between confusion, disgust, and curiosity—she was covered in some kind of elaborately pretentious inlay rather than good, sturdy armor and tar. He squinted into the glass harder as the interloper slid in sleek as can be against  _ Excalibur _ ’s starboard side, and—

AND—

Sora nearly dropped the spyglass from his suddenly spasming fingers; Ven grabbed it from him before it could fall into the water. “They’re  _ boarding _ her,” he snarled, and whipped around in a flurry; the chaos of flesh and cargo was already close to being cleaned up, piled neatly as gambler’s coins by the starboard rail. His crew were beginning to gather nearby; Sora assumed they were wondering where the hell  _ Excalibur _ was by now.

“Take in lines!” he roared, and every single head turned to stare at him. “NOW!” 

His crew ninepins scattered then, unquestioning; Sora’s boots slid in some gleaming slime, and he just let it take him to where  _ Thunderlord _ ’s crew were sitting in defeated dejection, watched by Leon. “Get up,” Sora snapped, beckoning. “Get this hulk moving,  _ right now _ .” 

“What’s happened?” Leon asked, and Sora just pointed furiously in the direction of the sacrilege in process; that got Sora raised eyebrows before Leon stepped out of the way and gave the  _ Thunderlord  _ crewmen way.

The bunch of them stared at Sora stupidly, unmoving even as Sora’s crew did their best to set sail with a boat much too large for a boarding party.  _ Thunderlord _ was a three-master, and heavy; she needed a score at  _ least _ to get her moving, and that wasn’t taking the jealous currents that encircled the leviathan into account. “Why should we?” one piped up after a moment, and it took all of Sora’s willpower not to reach over and throttle him.

“Because otherwise I will dump every single one of you overboard,” he snarled. “Haunt me, whatever— _ do I look like I care? _ ” 

That must’ve hit the right note, because they scrambled. He didn’t wait to see if they were actually doing their jobs; Leon would make sure they didn’t start anything, and Sora was already running for the quarterdeck. Xion and Yuffie were doing their best above to unfurl the sails; at least they had a beam wind, and Sora could hear a boatswain’s whistle piping above the growing cacophony of crew readying to sail. Whether it was Tidus or  _ Thunderlord _ ’s person didn’t matter; they just needed to GO. NOW.

His heart hammered in his chest as he flung himself up to the quarterdeck, taking ladder rungs 3 at a time, and scrambled to the helm. Around him, he felt the ship beginning to move—not the physical whip of sail and creak of wood, but something that was almost a shiver. It was always stronger on  _ Excalibur _ , that kind of knowing, because  _ Thunderlord _ wasn’t  _ his _ . He hadn’t wanted to sail her, ever: she was big and sturdy, made to withstand the unpredictable waters surrounding leviathans and to outlast sea-wights in a chase, tall enough to carry harpoons  _ and  _ enough guns to fight off any kind of vampire squid or flying man-o-war or hagfish with legs that showed up.

_ Excalibur _ didn’t need to fight them off. She just outran them.

Even without a spyglass, Sora could see the quick, unceremonious takeover of  _ his ship _ in progress, and he stifled the urge to scream. Instead, he hollered, “VEN!” as he unroped the wheel from its locked position, coiling it hand to elbow as fast as he humanly could—maybe even on the verge of inhuman, he was so  _ fucking mad _ —as Ven scrambled up after him.

“What are our chances?” Sora asked through gritted teeth. 

Ven heaved in a breath—he’d probably been sprinting back and forth along the deck, ensuring the two crews weren’t going to kill each other—and gasped out, “You know already.”

“Maybe I’m wrong.”

Sora caught Ven’s eyebrows arching before he just shook his head. “For once, you’re not,” he said gently, smile lopsided. “There’s no way this sea cow’ll catch up with either of them. They’ll be halfway to the mainland before we’ve even reached four knots.” 

“If she can even get to three,” Sora growled, and flung the now-coiled rope aside viciously. He slammed a fist into the face of the wheel. “ _ Fuck _ .” 

“Here,” Ven said, and offered him the spyglass again. “Figure out who it is and we’ll hunt them down.” 

Sora looked at the spyglass, then back up at Ven. He had a split lip, and his chin was covered in a crust of dried blood; the usual coin-brightness of his hair was dulled and greasy with leviathan guts. Sora probably didn’t look much better. He suddenly felt very tired and petulant. The urge to retort something like, ‘ _Excalibur_ ’s the fastest ship out there—how can we ever catch her?’ washed over him—and then away again as he let out a long, rattling sigh.

He took the spyglass. Ven beamed at him, splitting his lip even further. “Get to it,” he ordered, and shoved Sora free of the wheel. “Soon as we’re clear of the beast,” he yelled to the deck below, “bring her about then trim her to beam reach! We’ve got some ships to catch!”

Sora braced himself between the rail and the flagstaff at the stern, trying to make himself memorize details instead of stew. It was a mixed success; his grip was a bit too tight to be comfortable around the spyglass, but he also caught sight of his sailing master, Cid, conversing with some of the boarding party. At least he wasn’t dead, Sora mused darkly—not that he’d expected the bastards to do anything to the crew still manning his ship. You didn’t kill people at sea if you could help it, after all. 

He didn’t recognize any of them, even after switching between both left and right eyes and trying to dilate his pupils by poking them (to no success). If they’d just move their damn ship out from  _ Excalibur _ ’s shadow he might know their colours! As it was, they might as well have been anyone.

Well, not  _ anyone _ . He knew it had to be someone rich, if that fancy-ass inlay meant anything.

It took a good five more minutes for  _ Thunderlord _ to really get underway, and at that point, Sora had nearly melted to the deck with frustration. The sensation of the hulk finally beginning to move drew a huge sigh out of him. In the distance,  _ Excalibur _ had already started a starboard tack, and the other ship was following suit. 

“Ready about!” Tidus called, chorused by crew up and down the ship. Sora groaned and banged his head against the rail gently. His ship was gone. What kind of captain let his ship be captured in the middle of his  _ own _ capture? Now he was stuck babysitting a bunch of hunters, including a captain who would probably try to murder him in his sleep if he untied her. At least Ienzo didn’t seem to have a grudge—or he was just better at hiding it than Elrena. 

Sora pondered this, propping his chin on the rail and listlessly pressing the eyepiece against his face again. There she went, flag flapping jauntily from the stern as if in mocking farewell. With his free hand, he reached out and waved, biting his lip to try and keep some kind of dignity—no matter how much he wanted to sniffle. 

Finally, _Excalibur_ outpaced the other ship enough that he could see the bulk of her stern and her flagstaff, adorned with—and Sora’s lethargy was again burned away in a boiling column of rage as he recognized _Excalibur_ ’s ensign flag hung below the other ship’s smug colours: a rich man’s jolly roger of heart and crossed keys.

His hand froze mid-wave, and then a man climbed to the quarterdeck, faced him, and waved back.

The hair on the back of Sora’s neck stood on end, and he leaned over the rail, trying to force his eyes to focus tighter, give him more details than a dark blue bandana, the hint of pale hair, and a smile so condescending he wanted to reach out and punch it. 

Scowling, Sora paused in his wave to flip whoever-they-were off; the man’s smile only quirked slightly, and he gave a mocking salute before turning away and disappearing into the officers’ quarters. 

Sora was down the quarterdeck before he even realized he was moving, and stormed to a halt beside Elrena and her first mate. They’d been pulled up into sitting positions against the mainmast. Elrena’s eyebrows arched as Sora fell into an agitated squat before them, chin jutted.

“Who is that?” he demanded, gesturing back out to sea. She merely hummed in response, and lifted her shoulders in a little shrug. He was so fucking  _ done _ with the day; he grabbed one shoulder and pressed her back against the mast, getting up close, repeating quietly, “ _ Who is that? _ ”

Her nose wrinkled, like his breath stank. It probably did. Sora did not care. “I don’t know,” she snapped. “I can’t see over the damn rail.”

Without waiting for her to say anything else, he dragged her to her feet by her arm—she weighed nothing, despite the height she had on him—and shoved her in front of him to the rail. She cursed as he dug his fingers into the spaces between bone and tendon in her wrists.

“See her now?” he growled, and Elrena stopped squirming and complaining to look, craning forward slightly. Then her entire body went still against him, corpse-stiff. “Well?”

He heard her swallow, mouth working, before she managed to grate out, “You idiot. That’s  _ Way to Dawn _ .”

“Never heard of her,” Sora replied, and Elrena choked. She craned her head around to stare at him with one bloodshot eye.

“You’re fucking with me.”

Any other time, Sora would be down for a round of repartee with an old nemesis, but his  _ ship _ was  _ sailing away without him _ . He tightened his grip on her until she hissed and looked away, teeth gritted. “I am not,” he told her, ice cold.

“That’s amazing, even for you,” she managed, and a shaky little giggle escaped her. “How long’ve you been haunting this area and you still don’t know about that bastard? Did you fall on your head on the way out of your mother’s—”

Wordlessly, he shoved her stomach against the rail, one hand in her oil-soaked hair, the other at the small of her back, and pressed down until she folded, head hanging towards the water. “Go on,” he said softly. 

Elrena just laughed, shaking against the hard pressure of his palms. “ _ Boring _ , no way. Ugh.” She spat and muttered to herself. “Let me up and I’ll tell you whatever you need. But you’re off my ship the  _ second _ you catch up with them, got it?” 

Scowling, he pulled her back up and sat her beside her first mate again. The ship was beginning to pick up speed as she finished her tack, boom swinging overhead and sails filling greedily. The strange crest of the leviathan was behind them, edges wavering and splitting like droplets of oil atop a bowl of vinegar until it hurt to look at it any longer. Sora closed his eyes, and when he opened them again, the monster was gone, neat and clean, as though it had never been. 

The paper in his pocket, heavy with its too-long, unpronounceable, mostly illegible name, would bring them back to it eventually.

Ahead,  _ Excalibur _ and  _ Way to Dawn _ —which, what kind of a name was that?—were already distant, slightly darker shadows against the night sky. Sora bit his lip against a chest-shattering surge of rage, hot and forceful as the recoil of a carronade. 

“She berths in the Port of Sins every few months.” He glanced over at Elrena. Her head was tilted back against the mast, eyes closed. First mate looked as though she was about to pass out, chin nearly resting against her sternum, eyelids fluttering. “They call her the ghost ship, you know,” Elrena continued, one eye cracking open to peer at him slyly. “And she’s got a ghost captain to match.”

At Sora’s unimpressed look, she snickered, closing her eye again. In a mocking singsong, she promised, “You’ll see!” 

“I’ve killed ghosts,” Sora said mildly. “It’s not that hard.” 

“Oh, but he’s not just a ghost!”

“I’ve killed  _ captains _ , too.”

“But not a  _ ghost captain _ , huh? Let me know how it goes for you.” Her voice dropped to flat disgust. “I’ve been trying to get rid of him for years.” Her nose wrinkled as a piece of grimy hair blew into her face. She puffed it away and fixed Sora with a skeptical glare. “He holds court in the Bitter End. Even you can’t miss him.” 

Sora’s lip twitched. “ _ Court?”  _

Elrena barked a laugh, high and sharp, and lolled her head back against the mast. A slow grin spread across her face. “Riku’s king from Devil’s Bay all the way to the cape. Farther, even, if you count all the merchant-ships paying for his protection.” She smirked. “Since you’re already on his bad side… You probably  _ should  _ count them.” 

Sora turned the name over in his mouth like a bad ship’s biscuit, nose wrinkling. “I don’t care if he thinks he’s fucking Poseidon—he’s  _ dead _ .” 

She didn’t say anything else, just gave him a smug, goading little smile. Sora turned away from her with a growl, cupping his hands around his mouth to call, “Set course for the Port of Sins!”

***

Two days into the voyage, Sora came to the realization that reaching their destination was going to take a lot longer than he’d anticipated. He’d figured two weeks, give or take—but that was with  _ Excalibur _ .  _ Thunderlord _ was turning out to be about as effective as a lead weight at moving forward with any kind of urgency. 

At this rate, it’d take them a month to graze the mouth of Devil’s Bay, and by then literally anything could have happened to his ship. Riku could dissemble her, or give her to someone else, or even just beach and burn her.

Sora didn’t let himself think about  _ that _ .  _ Excalibur _ was the finest ship on the water, and even some kind of ridiculous  _ ghost captain _ wouldn’t be stupid enough to waste her that way. (Unless he was even more spiteful than Sora had seen, which was a definite possibility.) 

By day six, he’d found the best place to pace without getting in the way of the crew’s day-to-day: the port side of the forecastle. It was raining, which gave him a little more room than usual; you couldn’t do much maintenance when everything was soaked through. Most of the crew was belowdecks. He caught the bare edge of cheers and singing from below every now and then; Ven must’ve given everybody a ration of rum to keep them from killing each other. 

Sora mulled over getting himself some, but the prospect of going below and potentially having to interact with _Thunderlord_ ’s quartermaster—or worse, Elrena herself—wasn’t enough to jar his steps. The decking was slick beneath his boots, and rain occasionally dripped off the edge of his hat to crawl, icy cold, down the back of his coat. 

“Still pacing?” came from behind him, and Sora turned on his heel to find Ienzo, a book tucked under one arm, teacup in a saucer balanced in one hand and an umbrella in the other. “That won’t change anything, you know.”

Ienzo looked much better now that he’d had a few days without contact with the mirror: his cheeks were less sunken and his clothes clean, and he’d returned to just two regular-old human eyes in their proper places. (Well, one at least. Sora had yet to really figure out if he had another under the fall of his hair.) Without waiting for Sora to reply, he brushed water off the top of a nearby crate and took a careful seat, wincing a bit as the wet seeped into his trousers anyway. 

Sora sighed heavily, and sat beside him atop the crate with a squelch. Politely, Ienzo shifted his umbrella to cover Sora as well. “Nothing else I do will either.”

Ienzo didn’t reply for a moment as he set his saucer down beside him and shifted his book to his lap. “You’d prefer to be out here in the rain than, say, enjoying a hot toddy with the officers in your quarters?” He flipped the book open, fingers teasing out a specific page effortlessly. 

“I’m not a fan of Elrena’s decor,” Sora quipped. “Too many sharp edges.”

That got him a thoughtful hum. Ienzo shifted the umbrella to the crook of his elbow to hold his page with a hand, taking the teacup in the other. Steam curled off the dark liquid within. It didn’t smell like coffee or tea, so Sora forced his mind to stop right there. Sometimes, it was better not to know. “You’re angry.” 

“Uh, _ yeah? _ ”

“Getting angrier,” Ienzo observed, and Sora growled in return, burying his face in his hands. His fingers were icy cold against his cheeks as he dragged them down, then pulled himself upright again. 

“He  _ stole _ my fucking  _ ship _ , Ienzo. From under my nose.” 

Ienzo took a sip. “Have you constructed a plan for how you’re going to get it back?” he asked, visible eyebrow arching. “Or are you just stewing?”

“Of course I’ve got a plan,” Sora retorted. He held up a hand, fingers flipping upward one by one. “One, we get to the Port of Sins. Two, I find my ship. Three, I kill  _ Captain Riku _ . Four, I ransack  _ his _ ship. Five, we sail off, rich as kings.” 

There was more nuance to this plan than he’d said aloud, but Ienzo didn’t need to know the specifics, like how he was going to keelhaul the bastard until some sea predator caught up with them and ate him alive. That part was a bit personal. 

“May I offer you some… frank advice, Captain?” Ienzo asked, edge of his cup pressed thoughtfully against his chin.

Sora couldn’t help but snort a laugh. He took his hat off to pour some of the collected rain from the brim, disconsolately watched the waterfall splatter on the deck. “Sure. Can’t hurt.”

“I would try to avoid Riku, if you can. He’s a very dangerous man. I would be…” He trailed off, visible eye drifting and unfocused for a moment. “Sad to hear of your untimely demise,” he pronounced, soft and careful, focusing on Sora again. “I’ve grown quite fond of you.”

Sora allowed himself a moment to be slightly offended that Ienzo didn’t have faith in his ability to fucking kill Riku. Then he forced it aside to hook an arm around Ienzo’s shoulders and pulled him into his side, squeezing. “You  _ like _ me! Me, a dirty old pirate who’s robbed you  _ twice _ !”

Ienzo made a noise that sounded a lot like a mouse being stepped on, so Sora let him go almost immediately. His tea-that-wasn’t-tea sloshed dangerously as he swayed back upright, umbrella soon following. “Ye-es,” he said, squinting at Sora like he was going to do that again. “Something like that. You have a certain charm.”

“Charm!” Sora repeated, delighted. “That’s the nicest thing you’ve ever said to me.” 

“And will remain so for the rest of my days,” Ienzo replied dryly. “I’m serious, you know. About Riku being dangerous.” 

“Yeah, and?”

Ienzo sighed through his nose and took a long sip of his drink. “Don’t say I didn’t warn you.” 

It rained for three more days, and halfway through them Sora woke up with a headache that felt like someone was gently pounding his brow with a sharp rock. He dragged himself out of bed for his usual check-in with the middle watch, blinked, and suddenly he was lying halfway across the quarterdeck with bruised knees and scraped palms.  _ Thunderlord _ ’s first mate was at the helm, and immediately rushed over to him with heart-warming concern on her face.

Her hands felt so nice and cool against his skin as she hauled him to his feet. “Pardon my saying, Captain,” she said hesitantly, “but you seem aguish.”

Sora thought about this for a moment, cataloguing the merciless ache in his joints, the slide of sweat down his neck, the uncontrollable shivers knocking his elbows painfully against his ribs—and croaked, “Yeah, seems like.” He peered at her. “Who are you again?”

“I’ll fetch Ienzo,” she told him, and Sora blinked again to find himself back in bed, the man in question methodically stirring a cup of something at his bedside. Ven stood beside him, arms crossed, exasperation dragging his features down heavily.

“I  _ told _ you moping out there was a bad idea.”

Sora squinted at him and rolled over to face the bulkhead they’d put in place to separate him from Elrena. Even that little action made his head spin. 

A hand touched his shoulder, gently forcing him to sit up against his pillow. “C’mon,” Ven told him, shoving a piece of hardtack into his face. “Have a bite of biscuit and whatever  _ that _ is.” He gestured over at Ienzo, showering Sora with stale crumbs.

“Just some laudanum and willow bark,” Ienzo answered vaguely, and set the spoon aside. “It’ll put you to sleep to work out that fever.” 

Sora groaned, which just gave Ven time to shove the bite of biscuit into his mouth. It tasted a lot like sawdust mixed with wallpaper paste, and dried his mouth out even further. Swallowing it was actually painful; it didn’t even seem to make it all the way down, just sat somewhere between his mouth and his stomach. The concoction Ienzo handed him didn’t look much more appealing: black and viscous. 

At least he couldn’t smell it. With a sigh, he threw it back, and somehow managed to keep from spitting it out immediately; it was cloyingly sweet with a sharp streak of bitterness, like Ienzo had poured molasses over something rancid to try and disguise it.

Of course, that didn’t really matter, because Sora closed his eyes and didn’t open them again for quite a long time. When he did, it was to find Elrena sitting beside him. Waking up was the most difficult thing he’d ever done, and his mouth had the texture of sun-baked dirt. His  _ bones _ hurt, even under the too-soft, too-heavy blanket of laudanum. 

Elrena cocked her head as Sora stared at her blearily, her eyebrows arching. She looked better than Sora had last seen her: the bruise on her cheekbone had faded to a sallow shadow rather than a violent plum bloom, and her hair was oiled back once more.

“Fancy seeing you here,” Sora croaked, and Elrena’s mouth quirked into something that wasn’t quite a smile.

“Don’t look so frightened,” she sniffed. “I was curious whether you were going to die on your own.”

Sora closed his eyes again. His nose was so clogged it felt swollen to twice its size; he could only breathe through his mouth, which just made the complete lack of moisture even worse. His voice cracked and wavered like a boy’s when he managed to gather the barest bit of saliva and speak again. “Sure you don’t want to help it along?” 

Her nose wrinkled. “Why would I do that when I can watch Riku disembowel you?” she replied tartly, standing in one smooth movement and stalking to his bedside. Elrena reminded him a lot of a deer, if a deer were carnivorous: all leg and delicacy until she bit you. “Or feed you to his ship. I’ve never seen  _ that _ one, but I hear it’s pretty gruesome.” 

“Oh, it eats people?” he asked gamely. “You know, I can see up your nose like this. Might wanna trim some.”

Elrena tapped a fingertip against his adam’s apple, and he swallowed before he could stop himself. “Among other things. I’m not sure which I’d prefer. Maybe,” she drawled, tiptoeing fingers up his throat like a particularly large spider until a nail was poking painfully against his lower lip. “ _ Maybe _ he can keep you alive with your entrails hanging out, so I can see both.”

Sora wondered for a moment if biting her would make her stop or just encourage her. The risk was too much even for him, so by some massive force of will managed to lift a hand and brush her away. She pulled her hand away without protest, but she was smirking like she’d won a game. “Maybe!” 

The ship creaked around them. Elrena’s eyes, bright as lightning, bored into him for what felt like—well, he couldn’t even estimate. Every time he blinked, it felt as though the light through the stern windows had changed, fading closer and closer towards night. Could’ve been minutes or hours. 

“We’ll see. But now you know why you’re still alive,  _ Captain. _ There’s worse waiting for you.”

“How huge is this bastard’s dick,” Sora managed, with considerable difficulty because he could actually feel his blood getting more and more sluggish in his veins, “that everybody’s so eager to ride it?” 

Elrena just grinned. “You’ll see.” 

And with that she turned, coattails flourishing in peacock-ish posture, and stalked from the room.

Sora  _ wanted _ to stay awake now, in spite of how much his whole body was protesting the simple act of being alive, just to roll the worrystone of this fucker through his fingers a few hundred more times. He struggled with it for a few blinks, and then gave up with a sigh. 

In his fever dreams, Sora swam in a black ocean, and there was fire on the horizon, and his guts were hanging out of him as he struggled towards those distant lights; things were tugging at his entrails, sharks and wights and worse, except when he looked down it was riggers climbing his body easy as the shrouds, up and up from the abyss. What would happen when they reached him? 

Someone called his name, and when he looked up the water was aflame.

It took two weeks for him to get back on his feet. Ienzo kept him on a steady diet of porridge and awful, bitter tea until Sora took his wrist one day and tugged him close. 

“If you give me one more bowl of slop,” he said slowly, “I’m going to puke it all over you, on purpose.” 

Ienzo snorted at him and brushed him off, but next time, Ven brought him fresh-caught tunny, seared and smoking from the galley, and Sora could’ve actually cried. (He did, actually, but Ven didn’t say anything, and Sora loved him all the more for it.) 

By the time he could hobble his way topside without having to stop halfway up the stairs to breathe heavily, land had been sighted at long last. Ven was hovering, highlighting the wild excitement Sora had missed in his convalescence (“Yuffie caught an oarfish and nearly caused a civil war by leaving it in Lauriam’s hammock; we owe Leon an extra ration of rum once we can replenish supply for keeping it under control…”) as he walked the quarterdeck, stretching his legs.

“Any sight of them?” Sora interrupted, but Ven just shook his head.

“What do you think?” he sighed, slumping with his elbows against the rail. Sora sighed and joined him. “We’re running on Elrena’s word that he’ll be at Port of Sins. Haven’t caught a glimpse since the second day.” 

Sora grimaced and let his head hang to watch the water swelling and receding against  _ Thunderlord’s _ ponderous sides. Even with a fair wind, they were so torturously  _ slow _ . He vowed never to sail a hunter-ship again. Minus the fast ones. There  _ were _ fast ones, weren’t there?

“Get anything else on them, then?” He waved a hand, like Ven would know exactly what he was talking about—and Ven did, of course; he wasn’t quartermaster for nothing. 

“Well, depends on what you’re looking for. Fact, or probable fiction?” 

Sora glanced at him, eyebrows rising. Ven met his look and shrugged. “I mean. Both? Both is good.”

That drew a snort out of him. Ven chewed on his lip for a moment, absently combing his hair out of his eyes. “Fact,” he began, only to pause again, squinting into the distance. “Well, I  _ think _ it’s fact, but I’m not betting my life on it; he’s  _ actually _ cursed.” 

“If he’s cursed, how’d he steal my ship?” Sora muttered, and Ven shrugged again.

“Maybe it’s not that kind of curse? You know how it goes. Maybe he can’t set foot on land for more than a day or something stupid like that.”

“Maybe he only lusts after fish.”

“That’s also a possibility.”

Sora puffed a faint sigh. “Okay, next?”

“As far as anybody knows, he’s  _ also _ got a charm of good luck gifted to him by a siren, which could be why the curse doesn’t seem to matter.” 

“Is that how it works? You can just cancel them out like that?”

“Weeeeell…” Ven pursed his lips thoughtfully. “It depends? Usually you’d have to ensure both came from the same contractual party, with the same terms and conditions. But if he’s smart and played his cards right, then it’s not too farfetched. You  _ can  _ nullify binding agreements that way. Regardless, we don’t know what his curse even is, so it’s not all that relevant.”

Sora grimaced. “Next.”

“Everything else is  _ definitely _ tall tales,” Ven cautioned.

“Can’t hurt to hear ‘em,” Sora replied, standing upright again and stretching his arms up until his back gave a satisfying pop. “Give it to me.”

What Sora learned was this:

He was called a ghost captain because he’d given half his soul to a mermaid in exchange for the ability to disappear.

His ship was actually a baby leviathan, and anyone who guessed the truth was fed to it.

If you met his eyes straight on, he’d hypnotize you, like a cobra—and he probably had fangs to match, full of wicked venom.

His mother was a sea-wight and his father a full-blooded demon, and under his greatcoat he was just a black-blooded, many-limbed monstrosity. (And, Ven added slyly, according to  _ Thunderlord _ ’s master gunner, many-limbed didn’t mean just arms and legs. That got them both snickering for a good minute.) 

He apparently had a sister married to an ancient deepspawn, who gave him the name of every leviathan from here to the northernmost trenches.

All of this was hilarious, and Sora was almost eager to find out how close to the truth any of them could actually be; his bet was on the final, least impressive one, wherein  _ Captain Riku _ had a lucky peg leg. He wanted to see if he could cut that off and watch him flounder a bit before putting a bullet between his eyes. 

The final stretch to the port was torturous. He was reduced to pacing again, unable to keep still even under Ven’s despairing sighs and accusatory looks. Elrena seemed to be suffering the same way, and every time they happened to be on deck at the same time it felt a lot like when rival tomcats encountered one another in an alley: some hissing, some spitting, some fur-puffing until Elrena inevitably surrendered and slunk away.

Sora always made sure to preen in her view, getting chummy with her crew, adding some personal touches to  _ Thunderlord: _ a little  _ Excalibur _ X scratched in the wheel, another painted slapdash along the bow. 

***

The Port of Sins had earned its name, and wore it with a certain amount of pride. As they finally got within hailing distance the sun was beginning to dip on the horizon, painting its ramshackle, precariously stacked shanties and dockhouses pretty shades of gold and purple. The sprawl of the town beyond the shipyards slowly began to light up with red whorehouse lanterns and orange tavern fires, blue witchlights and violet ghostwards. 

The ships moored around the mouth of Devil’s Bay had only one feature in common, and that was their buoyancy. A few even seemed to be fighting that bit of uniformity; _Thunderlord_ ’s wake swamped a few sad coracles and dinghies as she passed. One even sank, leaving a lonely buoy and some bubbles in her place. 

Sora had stolen the spyglass again, and his upper body hung precariously over the bow rail as he searched for any sign of  _ Excalibur _ . His entire body was wound much too tightly; his hands shook a bit around the brass of the spyglass, pressing it too hard against his eye again. Behind him, the crews were busily preparing to weigh anchor; the sound would have been comforting if he could just see his damn  _ ship _ .

“ _ CAPTAIN! _ ” someone screamed from above, and Sora glanced up to see Xion hanging off the rigging above him, a spider monkey silhouette with one arm outstretched. “ _ LOOK! _ ”

His heart stuttered and his breath caught so hard it triggered a coughing fit, but Sora wasn’t going to be stopped by something as stupid as that; his body shook with the force of his wheezing as he shoved the spyglass against his eye again and tried to follow the line of Xion’s arm.

His eyes were watering from the force of his hacking when he finally saw her:  _ Excalibur _ , blurry through the tears. Sora couldn’t help a tiny, gobsmacked curse as he looked her over. 

She seemed… fine. Like she’d just been waiting for him to find her, patient as a lost hound. His fingers were trembling when he lowered the spyglass again and carefully stowed it in his coat again. He wiped the tears away with his sleeve as he whirled about, sprinting down the forecastle and jumping the drops to quarterdeck and main deck.

“Weigh anchor and get me a jollyboat ready!” he roared. Ven clattered a stop beside him, wild-eyed.

“Is she—?” 

“She’s there,” Sora confirmed, and stalked grimly over to where his boat was being prepared. “Looks fine. But I bet he’s done  _ something _ .”

Sunset was coming to a close when their jollyboat bumped against  _ Excalibur _ ’s side. Trusting his crew to do their jobs, he locked his oar and immediately leapt for a cannon port before scrambling up the side with all the manic energy of a ferret. 

Sora swung himself over the rail and immediately drew his knife, ready to be tackled or grabbed or shot—but found himself alone.  _ Excalibur _ ’s main deck was clean and empty as the day she first set sail. The boards looked close to shining in the last feeble rays of sunlight, like the wood had been spit-polished. That was  _ incredibly _ ominous. His eyes darted back and forth, searching for the catch even as Ven climbed up beside him, shoving a pair of pistols into Sora’s belt without asking. 

“Something’s wrong,” Sora murmured, shooting him a glance, and Ven nodded after a moment’s pause. 

The rest of the crew slowly joined them, milling suspiciously as they inspected the various bits and bobs of  _ Excalibur _ ’s main deck and masts. “Search the holds. Stay in pairs; don’t let anyone sneak up on you,” Sora ordered, and swept off towards the quarterdeck, urgency and trepidation tickling at the back of his neck in icy fingers.

The stern was adorned with a jaunty little flag that was most assuredly  _ not _ supposed to be there. 

A furious growl worked itself out of him, and he sheathed his knife to clamber up and rip the arrogant fucking handkerchief down, wadding its blue and silver heraldry up and throwing it as hard as he could into the water. It was less magnificent in practice than he’d wanted; it uncurled and drifted, sadly, to land right against  _ Excalibur _ ’s hull, sticking against it stubborn as seaweed. Sora, for good measure, worked up as much phlegm as he could (which was a considerable amount; his illness was finally paying off) and spat a loogie at it. The far-away splat was much more satisfactory.

“Nice shot,” Ven commented from below. He was rocking from heels to toes beside the door to the captain’s quarters— _ Sora’s _ quarters—while he played an elaborate game of keep-away between his knife and his fingers.

Sora glanced down to the quarterdeck with as much haughtiness as he could, pausing to adjust his hat so the obnoxious feather lay just  _ so _ before laying a hand across his heart. “You expected less than perfection, Mister Ventus? I’m wounded.” 

“You’re gonna be in chunks if we don’t check everything out and get ambushed,” Ven replied dryly. Sora rolled his eyes and hopped down to join him, pulling out a pistol—already loaded, thank  _ god _ for Ven—and half-cocking it. The mutter of his crew searching the holds drifted up between Sora’s feet; there was no agitation to it, so they must not have found anything yet. 

_ Yet _ . There would be something. It was just a matter of figuring out what. 

“Chunks, huh? Ye of little faith!” Sora sidled up to the door and pressed his ear against the wood. Nothing. He shrugged and Ven shrugged back. With no further warning, Sora drew back and then slammed his shoulder into it as hard as he could. It blew open with an ease he had  _ not _ anticipated; Sora careened to the floor, pistol clattering away and hat flying off to better climes. All the breath got knocked out of him in a pathetic wheeze into the floorboards.

Choking and coughing, he rolled onto his back. He fully expected to be shot in the face by the bastard himself—but it was Ven standing over him, hands on his hips, head cocked to the side. “Perfection, huh?” he said mildly, and all Sora could do was squeak. He was obviously struggling not to laugh as he leaned down to pull Sora up by the hand. “Can’t believe they nearly got you, Captain.” 

“Harr-de-harr,” Sora grumbled. He still sounded like a squirrel had taken up residence in his esophagus, but at least he could breathe again. He relinquished Ven’s hand to brush himself off before stalking over to his fallen hat and squashing it back on. The pistol had slid off somewhere out of sight—probably behind his desk. He’d find it later.

Sora swung himself around the corner of the desk and into his chair with a sigh somewhere between relief and exhaustion; the cushion had been molded through years of hard work to fit his rear just right, and he’d missed it terribly. “Chair’s fine,” he noted, and Ven snorted in reply, already arms deep in the chest of drawers that stored their paper goods: cream-soft folios for scribe work (stolen), a dozen or so well-loved books (stolen), and ship’s logs ( _ not _ stolen, but the ink for it? stolen). 

The last dregs of sunlight dripped through the stern windows, spreading across his desk in pools of deep, bloody scarlet. Everything was in its place, as though she’d never left Sora’s hands. He trailed his fingers along the top as he watched Ven, tracing familiar paths past nicks and scars in the wood until the sudden, unexpected texture of paper stopped him.

Sora looked down. Half-hidden beneath his ink sander was a carefully sealed note.

Ah. There it was. The catch.

His chest tightened with something close to dread as he tugged it free and unfolded it. The paper was crisp and near-perfectly white, likely stolen from their own stores. He recognized the ink, too: kinda watery, too shitty for the paper, spreading the otherwise impeccable script.

_ Sora, _ it read, each letter curled and magnificent, like a fucking gazelle head on some rich lordling’s wall.  _ Lovely ship. I hope you don’t mind my procuring a small fee for her safe return. Next time, take better care of her. Cordially yours, Captain Riku. _

He crushed the paper in his fist so hard an edge caught his callouses and cut, sharp and too-painful for how tiny it was. A small fee? 

He shoved the crumpled page away and scrambled in his pockets for the key to his desk drawers—but the most important one was already unlocked. A lead weight plummeted from his throat into his stomach as he pulled it open and found it empty. Stripped clean.

The motherfucking goddamn  _ catch. _

Sora closed his eyes and slid the drawer shut again, locking it carefully. 

“Ven.” Sora was proud of how flat his voice was in spite of the furnace struggling to explode out of his ribcage. Ven turned to him, a book clutched to his chest; his brow furrowed at Sora’s expression, which likely was not near as calm. 

“What happened?” 

“We’re going to the Bitter End,” he said carefully, “and we’re going to fucking kill him.”

***

This is what I did.  
Laid it all out like tidal wave.  
Thought you could in fact  
lay out a tidal wave.

Coming for me. Coming for you.  
Thought, with the right attitude, you could train it to sing.  
My hands were wet.  
My face was wet.

Tidal Wave don't sing, said Tidal Wave.  
Tidal Wave crash.

—Emily Berry, _Tidal Wave Speaks_


End file.
